A bright, shiny New Year…I hope

20 days until the inauguration…5 months until my 50th birthday…5 months until my children graduate (on the same day, thank you) from their respective colleges….

So much to look forward to this year, yes?

I have every intention of purchasing that camera battery this week.  Every Intention.  Really.

In the meantime, here’s that cowl I mentioned last post.  Grape purple Manos del Uraguay, in a feather and fan pattern.

It’s hard to see, isn’t it.  Maybe this is better.

That’s a silly hairdo I have going on, but it’s New Year’s Day, I’m on call for work, and I’m just trying to lay low.  No expectations, no plans, just take the day as it comes.  Note I might better spend some time weaving in the ends of this cowl.

My brother.  I adore the guy.  I made him some wool/cashmere blend fingerless gloves for Christmas, in a simple 4×4 rib.  No, no pictures.  There was no time for photography.  I barely had time to wrap and send them.  Anyway, he has these gloves.  And today calls me and says, “they’re great, I love them, can I have a pair in black?”

You haven’t seen my cat in a while.  He’s here.

He seems to enjoy sleeping around my fiber.

Speaking of which, let’s end this New Year’s post with a little unintended humor, shall we?

Liana’s green drink and why I like green

Green. The word says Life. Spring. New. Grass. Buds. Flowers. Trees.

And kale.

Big, leafy, cheap, and so-nutritious-it’s-almost-illegal, kale.

My daughter (the above mentioned Liana) has been extolling the virtues of kale for some weeks now. Evidently a college friend has turned her onto making smoothies out of vegetables.

I know. YUCK.

But get this. It’s not that bad. It’s actually good. And if you check out this nutritional calculation website, maybe you’d like to try it, too.

Liana’s Green Drink

Take one handful of kale leaves

Take another handful of spinach leaves

Wash them. Put them in the blender.

Add some water (I cheat. I add Arizona Diet Green tea. It’s really, really good.)

Whirl around.

Throw in 1/2 of an apple, skin and all. Seeds if you don’t mind them.

Ditto with 1/2 a pear, or whatever you’d like.

(I added 1/4 of an avocado here, too).

Throw in some flax seed. And some oat bran.

Toss in 3 ice cubes.

Blend. Blend. Blend. Until you get this thick green thing substance that smells like the stuff you wipe off the bottom of the lawn mower.

Then drink it. And feel good. Because there’s your vegetables/fruits for the day. That’s it. You’re done!

The drink and the girl –

Other reasons I like green

Gardening.

Yup. We even put up Tiki lights on the patio.

Cool, huh?

Knitting is socks. STR, Tlinkit, Waving lace pattern. Just ready to start the heel now.

Got to run. It’s Memorial Day, there’s a parade, and I’m told my son’s name is being put up on a veteran’s plaque of some kind at the town hall. He’s a veteran now. But he’s alive, and home. We’re so lucky. Many are not. Remember them today, okay?

Happy FO day

And Happy Mother’s Day, too, to all who participate.

I visited my mother this weekend, and gifted her with the Montego Bay scarf she wanted to knit for herself last year, but had to frog numerous times.

I beaded her a necklace to wear with it. The furnace glass bead in the center is the exact same color as the yarn (Handmaiden Sea Silk in periwinkle) and reminds me of a star fish or some other ocean creature, so there you have it.

My brother’s Noro striped scarf is finished. He was deeply into the Grey Goose by the time we arrived at his house, and he knew perfectly well that his picture would end up on my blog, so this is the reaction I got to my photography attempt.

And that’s all.

I’m on call AGAIN this week, so if there’s a post, it will most likely be filed under ‘bitching and moaning’.

***Edited to add.  For some reason I cannot fathom, my brother hated the idea of his actual face on my blog.  So I doctored him up.  But you saw him first…here.

I’m still here

Sort of.

Traditionally, for reasons unbeknown to me, May is a damned shitty month.  Starting sometime in mid-April, and culminating into a full-fledged funk by my birthday in May…this is my yearly pilgrimage to the dark side.

My mind.  Don’t go in there alone.

I am working, but not enjoying it in the least.  I feel myself going “terminal”, in spite of my reasonably good health status.  Like I’m waiting for the guillotine to drop.  The diagnosis to come.  The bus to hit me.  I mean, why not?  Everyday I watch people die.  Men and woman younger than I are now dead.  People who scaled ice capped mountains in Greenland a few months ago are dead, and you can bet your ass they didn’t expect that outcome when they were savoring the view up there with the musk ox.  Lesson learned.  Why plan for a future when there may not be one?

See.  I told you I am in a bad way.

If history repeats itself as expected, I can expect to feel much better towards the end of the month.  In the meantime I am trying very hard to ride the wave without going under.

There is knitting being done, and other things, but the upcoming Mother’s Day holiday prevents me from posting photographs.

That’s another thing.  Mother’s Day.

Oh, god.

All my ghosts come out in May.

A picture intensive holiday

It’s noon on Christmas Day, and I am happily sitting here posting to you, and listening to Bare Naked Ladies on the present from my brother. As he could probably tell by my over-the-top gushing of glee on the phone, I really, really, really like it.

(If it isn’t obvious, it’s a Bose iPod SoundDock!)

The boyfriend, dear one that he is, thinks I get hives – not from stress – but from sterling silver. He thinks gold is a better metal choice.

But, being an observant sort of man, he made sure he got me gold that I would like…as in white gold. And a few sweet diamonds for sparkle, too.

And, to add to my already abundant watch collection –

He knows me well. I think he believes, as I do, that I was a crow in a previous life. I love shiny, sparkly things.

My kids, bless their hearts, also know me well. My daughter gave me a Beehouse teapot! Green, my favorite color. I’m going to brew my first pot in it in just a couple of minutes.

And my son gave me…YARN! (and some other stuff). The sock yarn is washable merino from Fleece Artist. The booklet is on Magic Loop with a long circular (included!), and for good measure, the wrist bag to hold yarn while knitting standing up (which I am quickly graduating to, as I hate just standing around, and itch to knit when I do). Hairspray is such a cool movie — I already have the soundtrack on my iPod — now I can watch it again.

I always love my mother’s gifts. She knows me well, too. She knows I love stones. This year it’s amber. Amber is warm and used to be part of a living thing, and it has a whole lot of history locked within it’s confines. I love this pendant because it reminds me of an arrow head, further pleasing my sense of history. Inside the amber is all sorts of occlusions and stuff.

This pin is very organic, and therefore very beautiful. And…it has a loop on the back so it can be worn as a pendant, too.

Update: There’s a mosquito in the pin — wings, legs, stinger and all. Holy crap!

She also sent me some warm fingerless gloves, a little Bearington Bear that I’m sure is intended as a Christmas tree ornament, but I’ll have out all year round, a new wall calendar, and what I can only guess is a potato masher?????

My kids were here for Christmas Eve. These are the greatest two kids ever created, if I do say so myself…

My son, who is one of the most handsome, brave, and sensitive men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing…and who is, by the way…also one of the very few (holy crap!) 4.0 students I’ve ever known –

And my beautiful daughter, who is extra gorgeous because from somewhere deep within, she’s found all this self-confidence that makes her shine — my wild woman-child — half rough and tumble hockey player, half femme-fatale –

**********

My mother sent DBF a sort of hat to keep his ears warm –

Here’s hoping everyone has as wonderful a day as I’m having. And from my house to yours…MERRY CHRISTMAS!

(and thank you all very much!)

Startitis?

If startitis is the disease that is manifested by the uncontrollable urge to start a new project while current projects hang limp on the needles…then I have a roaring case of startitis.

Clapotis in Silk Garden Lite.

Those are not enormous dropped stitches up there. Those are the yo’s that are supposed to stop the ripping when I drop a stitches on purpose later on. Or so the story goes….

Green is my favorite color.

At least it is today.

I’m knitting on size 9’s, and hoping my stitches aren’t too loose. I don’t think so. I’m aiming for an easy rip of the dropped stitch portion of the scarf, later on. And I want a nice drape. (Well. Maybe it is too loose. Crap.)

So I’ll soldier on and hope for the best.

In the good news department — Christmas boxes were mailed today. Phew. Cross that off my list.

Wouldn’t it be nice if it was okay to be happy with just a string of pretty lights, and maybe a candle to illuminate the dark at Christmas? But every year I succumb to the power of the Xmas machine and the demand to do more more MORE.

Buy more, spend more, wrap more, give more, clean more, cook more, plan more, drive more. Only to end up looking forward to next Wednesday, because then I can rest.

Next year I’ll do better.

But I tried. I kept decorations simple. Just some (okay, they’re fake) candles to light the way.

Someone at work said something today that stuck with me.

“My ghosts come out at Christmastime.”

That’s exactly what I would have said, if I’d known it was what I wanted to say at all.

“My ghosts come out at Christmastime.” Indeed. They do.

*****

But there’s tons to be happy about, too. My kids are home safely from college. There’s still money in the bank, even after the shopping is done. I have next Tuesday off. Tomorrow is hump day. Tomorrow morning I get to bend the ear of my medical director about some of these nightmare discharge plans I’ve been dealing with, confident that she’ll listen and hear only the important stuff in the midst of all my chatter, and give some really decent advice like she always does.

And…

Harrison says, “Mom may not like the Christmas season very much, but I sure do loves me my tree!”

Can’t get it up this year

Made you look, huh?

It’s not what you think. I can’t seem to stir up much enthusiasm for the holidays. Working through them doesn’t help much, I’m sure. Just being overwhelmed contributes, too, I suppose.

Guess maybe it’s time to set some limits.

Anyway….I have a lot of wrapping to do. Would it be okay if I just shmushed everything into gift bags and shook up some tissue paper oh-so-artfully, crammed it in, and presented everything that way?

(“Oh my GOODNESS! Would you look at this! She’s so clever! She blurred the picture so we can’t see what she got us!”)

My Malabrigo waves scarf is coming along. I see myself burying my nose in it. It’s warm and comforting, and brings to mind a small child self-soothing with a blankie.

(Yes, that’s right. I’m into self soothing again. So what?)

Harrison wishes his mom would pay more attention to him and quit dicking around with the damned scarf.

PLEASE?

Several months ago I picked up some Reynolds Whiskey on sale.

I have been sitting on it ever since. (Another yarn purchase with no clue.) However, I found this on Ravelry. I think that might be my next project. I want to line the bag, though. And change out that goofy looking handle they have on the pattern. The one they have is kind of busy.

I should be baking fruitcakes. But like every other year in the 20 year history of fruitcake baking for my dad…it’s not the mixing that I dread. It’s the lining of all those pans with greased brown paper.

I have no motivation today. None. I’m sort of hoping for a massive amount of snow so I can work at least the morning from home tomorrow. I have a ton of documentation to finish from Friday.

If I don’t get moving, Christmas is going to bite me in the ass.

Blech. This picture of the cat grasps what I feel like today. I only want to watch the snow fall….

Mood elevator

Going up….

My brother is a person who has a themed tree every year. One year it was an elf, complete with elf feet near the base, and hands somewhere in the middle. This year I think it’s blue and silver? Maybe apple green and white. Me…I’m a traditionalist. I have ornaments from when I was a baby. I love to get them out each year, dust them off, and drift back, for just a nanosecond, to the time and place the ornament represents.

This one reminds me of my Grandpa, for instance. He was a watchmaker.

My grandmother gave me an engraved brass ornament from Lillian Vernon every year for a while. All these years later, I still miss her terribly.

One year when I was little, I told her I liked this one, and she let me take it off her tree, and take it home to mine. It’s barely holding together.

I took this one off my tree at home when I left to start my own life. I remember it being hung every year when I was a kid.

My great aunt Jessie, I think, made this one when I was tiny.

One of the most special ornaments of all is the one I got one day in the mail a couple of years ago. It was a surprise. One of the other moms of a deployed Marine sent them out to our frightened little group of Marine moms with kids overseas. I wish I remembered her name now, but I’ll never forget what she did. The Christmas my son was deployed in Afghanistan was a rough one. This helped a little. At least we were in it together, us Marine moms.

Not really an ornament…but…my grandmother gave me her creche. One year I had it on a shelf, walked by, caught my sleeve on the corner, and the whole thing hit the hardwood floor. Nativity figures flew into pieces, and decades-old bits of straw and wood flew everywhere. It looked like a modern day bombing in Jerusalem.

This is all that’s left.

And here’s the finished tree. Done!

Oh, and by the way. My day off was absolutely splendid. The boyfriend took us to Dinosaur Barbecue, where the ribs taste like a campfire and the cornbread is to die for….

And tomorrow is Friday and payday. Any day that starts with an ‘F’ and ends in cash is a good day for me.

Oh, and Harrison says, “I really wish Mom would go back to work. She’s driving me nuts.”

…and here comes the letdown

Post holiday, that is.

The kiddos have gone back to school. I got up at the crack of dawn and made two batches of Tollhouse cookies to send back with them.

My daughter and I just went to the Christmas decoration place (we go to Frear’s – a little overpriced, but you know they’ll have what you need) and then to Big Lots to score some other holiday stuff. The wreath is up. I am skipping the anemic looking pine wreath with the chintzy bow this year, and replacing it with a wreath made of bells. Go, Big Lots.

I’ll put candles in the front windows upstairs and down. I got the battery operated ones that are on timers, so I don’t have to mess around with cords and run around like a chicken with my head cut off at dusk and then at bedtime, plugging and unplugging the damned things.

White mini lights will go in the front shrubbery, though not today.

I am sort of lacking in holiday spirit at the moment.

I had a great long weekend, though. Spent time with the wee ones, did a lot of cooking and some baking, saw a great movie last night (August Rush — do NOT listen to the critics on this one, and suspend your idea of reality for just a couple of hours when you go), brought in the patio furniture, and did some Christmas shopping.

Now real life returns. Bah, humbug.

But…while they were here, me and the kiddos made a holiday wish for you.

Oh, and a good portion of my weekend was spent getting my new toy (for some reason that I simply cannot fathom, my brother did not like it, and passed it on to me) up and running. Words cannot express how much I love this thing. It’s my life, in my pocket. (It’s a Palm Treo. Not only good for talking and texting, but also good for email and wiling away hours popping digital balloons.)

Oh, and I’m reading for my book club tomorrow night. We’re reading The Thirteenth Tale, and oh my…love it. I’d never heard of it before, but the cover says it was a NY Times bestseller. This book club should be good — it was conceived on Ravelry, and knitting IS allowed. My kind of book club.

I feel my mood improving already…

A post for Saratoga

I wore the usual baggy linen Flax outfit. (Note to Saratoga. The goofy expression and stance are all for you, dear. All for you.)

And managed not to set myself on fire checking the turkey.

Later the kiddos stopped over for pie and to hang out. This is their rendition of the turkey coma.

The BF wasn’t doing so well, either.

At least I’m still awake.

The daughter thinks she is going to get up at 4 AM to do Black Friday shopping. Me…no way. I’m sleeping in and then checking out my Christmas light inventory, and hopefully getting the tree up tomorrow.

Best not to let one holiday slip away before vigorously jumping into the next, you know.

And I may have to tell Typepad to take a hike if I can’t get this formatting straightened out. Blogs have pictures, no? So why the hassles in posting them?